Camera Traps

Overview

In landscapes around the world WWF scientists and field staff are using cameras equipped with infrared triggers, called camera traps, to obtain critical data about wildlife and their habitats. Now you can access the same pictures used by our scientists to study wildlife and their habitats and make important decisions about conservation.

Bhutan is home to an amazing 103 wild tigers—an increase from a previous estimate of 75 that was not based on actual field surveys—according to the country’s first-ever tiger survey released on Global Tiger Day Conducted entirely by Bhutanese scientists, the survey spanned habitats ranging from snowy, cold mountains in the north—where both tigers and snow leopards roam wild—down to dense, subtropical forests in the south.

What WWF Is Doing

While a "camera trap" might sound menacing, it actually does no harm at all to wildlife. The name is derived from the manner in which it "captures" wildlife - on film!

Camera traps are not the intricate and elaborate devices you might imagine; these innovative conservation tools are in fact nothing more than everyday cameras, armed with infrared sensors that take a picture whenever they sense movement in the forest.

While the device itself is not complicated, getting the film developed is. Because the cameras are placed in such remote locations, it often takes a full day to hike to each. Cameras also must be moved occasionally because their flashes often alert animals to their presence, causing those animals to avoid the area in the future.

Due to the moist, hot climate of many of the forest locations WWF is working, the cameras often malfunction, so scientists will be lucky if two-thirds of the pictures are of any animals at all. Scientists can get that rate of return in a dense forest only because they do significant research before placing the cameras in order to determine the most efficient and productive locations. Although infrared sensors allow camera traps to take pictures on their own, WWF scientists and field staff can claim full credit for the amazing images produced by camera traps.

Press Releases

A July 2012 camera trap study in Nepal identified 37 individual tigers—a marked increase from 18 tigers counted in 2009. The tigers were monitored over a three-month period inside Bardia National Park in Nepal and the Khata wildlife corridor in the Terai Arc Landscape.